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WHEREVER THEY MAY BE
© 1972, The
Beate Klarsfeld Foundation
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decision. There was an "association of EEC officials
who had been deported to concentration camps or had been in the Resistance,"
and we made good use of it. Its leaders were not content to send letters of
protest to the papers; they went in person, evidence in hand.
The
mission was successful. On April 6, Agence France Presse (AFP) broadcast the
association's protest, emphasizing that it was well founded and that it
contained a document in which "the German deputy advocated the arrest and
deportation of 2,000 Jews." On April 7, Le Figaro published a short
piece entitled, "Sharp Reaction to the German EEC Candidate." The influential
Le Monde printed an article that became the basis for the whole
campaign. It emanated, so far as documentation was concerned, from the release
I had sent P. J. Franceschini, who ended by saying:
A brilliant lawyer and an eloquent defender
of war criminals and persecutors of the Jews, Achenbach attracted further
attention in 193 in the Naumann case. As the liberal representative in the
North RhineWestphalia Diet and putative Minister of Commerce, his name was
mentioned in connection with the attempts Dr. Werner Naumann (former secretary
in the Propaganda Ministry) made to procure a following and a political career
for former Nazis, notably through "calls" in the Free Democratic Party. "In a
few weeks there won't be any more talk about denazification," he said to
Naumann, who replied: "I'm not so sure the French have such short memories."
After the Le Monde article, I put into operation the plan
that we had mapped out for bringing the matter to international notice. Only a
scandal about something as big as the Common Market could make the German
government back down.
But it was a touchy situation. The Social-Liberal
coalition had only a small majority of the votes. Now members of Achenbach's
party were about to defect and go over to the Christian Democrats: Erich Mende,
the former leader of the FDP, and Siegfried Zoglmann, another conservative.
Achenbach might well follow them if the government did not support his Brussels
ambitions. I was ready with an answer for people who claimed that my program
might injure Brandt: "If Brandt has a sufficiently convincing report on
Achenbach's Nazi career, he can put pressure on him, for a statement from the
Chancellor on this matter is as good as keeping Achenbach out of German
politics."
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WHEREVER THEY MAY BE
© 1972, The
Beate Klarsfeld Foundation |
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Page 101 |
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